The cool aesthetic of the Standard Hotel in L.A. includes glossy whitewashed walls, large red chaise lounges shaped like elements in a Dr. Seuss book, and glass boxes that contain bored women staring blankly into the abyss. For Casey Wilson, the comic actress who starred as Penny Hartz on Happy Endings, these stranger-than-fiction details inspire movie magic.

In her upcoming film, Ass Backwards, which she co-wrote and co-stars with longtime friend June Raphael, Wilson plays a diligently unaware "performer" or Girl in a Box. For her character Chloe, sharing a bed—and multiple credit cards—with her best friend is just the beginning of normalcy. The romping female buddy comedy follows the two down-and-out, but blissfully naive women, when they leave their less-than-glamorous big city lives to compete in their hometown beauty pageant. The film is rich with humor pulled from ironic and absurd moments, with the lighthearted feel of Dumb & Dumber, where friendship and strange misadventure drive the plot, rather than a quest for love.

We caught up with Wilson to talk about the comedy, life in L.A., and getting it all wrong.

How did you come up with concept for the movie?

I wrote it with June [Raphael], who is my best friend. We met at New York University when we were sophomores. We were living in an apartment on St. Marks Place, we had no money, and we shared everything. Our lives were…I don't want to say depraved, but we were building each other up in all the wrong ways. If she didn't have a boyfriend, I would say, "You don't have a man because you are too strong for man." We were dressing better than we had the money to [support] and answering each others' creditor phone calls. Everything we did was wrong-headed—which is how we came up with Ass Backwards. We kind of lived in this non-reality.

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Did you really share a bed?

Yeah, for the first four months. And we rented out the balcony to people to store bikes or whatever.

Did you still live together when you moved to L.A.?

No we lived far from each other, but we shared a car with another girl. We had to clown car around; it was a disaster.

How does that "backwardness" play out in the film?

When you move to New York, especially, you feel like you need to be something. But I see more and more people who are a little less willing to do what it takes to get there. They are just like, "I'm there. I look like I'm there; I act like I'm there." It's about dressing for the job you want. In L.A., you may see someone driving a Bentley, but they live in a [bad apartment]. Posturing is funny to me. Also with social media, you want to project this image. And these girls [in the film] are less interested in how to get there. They also have each other upholding the lie. [My character] says to June, "You're a business woman!" and she is selling her eggs. You can tell yourself anything. But it's also sort of sweet that friends would do that for each other.

Your character, for example, calls herself a performer, but her job is to sit in a glass box at a club.

I thought, what would that job be like? That's all you are: A girl in a box. You are nothing more, nothing less. I imagined someone thinking, "I've got to go perform tonight."

We were styled by these two wonderful girls, they are Kate and Chloe. They live in New York and their company is called Tuleste because their names are Celeste and Satu. They wear a lot of our clothes [for the movie] in real life. They are both sisters, and they are both blonde. They will show up in like a feathered hat, the other one is in a bowler hat, but they just look amazing.

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Do you have a favorite outfit?

I loved the pink muumuu and the aqua turban. In the opening, I am in a floral jumpsuit with a beaded headpiece.

Do you have a favorite red-carpet outfit?

I love this white dress that I wore to the Sundance [Film Festival] premiere of Ass Backwards. It was like a mod Joie dress with white beading on it and black tights; it was really cute. I really like white. My boyfriend says more and more of my clothing pieces are looking like wedding dresses. Next, I am going to show up in a wedding dress sports bra. Once again, dress for the job you want.

What's happening with 'Happy Endings'?

It's done. I'm sad to report. It is the best job I ever had. I love the cast. I loved that there was a show where all three women got to be super funny.

The scenarios were pretty wild. What was your favorite one to do?

I loved dancing and singing at a boat show with Megan Mullally. And I loved the show in which Adam [Pally] and I took cough syrup to try to not call our boyfriends. We essentially became drug addicts to avoid a guy thinking we liked him. And that was based on a girlfriend that one of our writers had, who would take NyQuil and knock herself out after going out so she wouldn't text. I just loved that.

You worked on the script for 'Bride Wars.' How did that come about?

June and I had this two-women show called Rode Hard and Put Away Wet, and we took it to the Aspen Comedy Festival. A woman came up to us after [we performed] and said there was this script that needed to be done for this movie Bride Wars. We had never written anything, and we were actually offended that she thought of us as writers and not as big stars. We went to the bathroom and I was like, "This is the worst! They think we are writers!" We thought these mugs were going to go straight to the top; meanwhile, it was the best thing that could have happened to us.

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You worked on 'Saturday Night Live' before 'Happy Endings.' What was that like?

It was great! It was very short-lived, and it wasn't the right fit, but I am glad I did it. At the time I remember feeling like I don't really know where I am going to go from here. And it was one of those time where you feel like, "I am so scared I don't know what is going to be next." Then I got Happy Endings, and the larger picture made much more sense to me.

Did you have a favorite character?

I loved when I got to do the character that I auditioned with, which was a paraplegic stripper. That was probably the most fun, and I loved doing the Cougar Den, which was these older women on a talk show with Amy [Poehler] and Kristen [Wiig]. It was so fun.

Their were rumors that when you left 'SNL,' it had to do with your weight?

It was strange because that was not why I was asked to leave. Someone reported that erroneously. And I had to laugh because, I was like, "No, I think they thought I wasn't carrying enough weight on the show." That's kind of, unfortunately, the business. I was obviously bummed. But it was such a strange time. My mom had passed away and I stopped working out and I was just trying to get to things on time. I remember being crushed because I wasn't even aware if I had gained weight. I still am not a size two—I don't think I could get there if I wanted to. It sounds so trite, but if you are feeling good then you are looking better, whatever that means. Obviously, I am in that little box of the TV and people are always like, "You look so much thinner than you do on the TV." And I guess that's a compliment? Question mark? I've always probably been too confident about my looks [laughs].

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Who are your comedic icons?

I love Tina Fey, obviously, and Maya Rudolph was always my longstanding favorite cast member. Catherine O'Hara, Madeline Kahn, Diane Keaton, Debra Winger; I love a lot of actresses who maybe aren't inherently thought of as comedians, but are so funny—women who got to be very powerful. When I was little, I was a big fan of In Living Color. I remember watching Kim Wayans (Damon Jr.'s aunt) doing a sketch of Tracy Chapman. I just remember dying thinking she was the most hysterical woman ever, and I needed to do what she was doing.

Did you do a lot of skits as a kid?

I was a total nerd in a bathing suit with a top hat and a baton doing A Chorus Line and my parents were like, "Ugh, please."

Are you close with your father?

He's great. He sends me a constant feed of his life. My brother and I found a Twitter account for my dad. My mind was blown, everyone on Happy Endings was following him by the end of the day. All his tweets were like, "I'll meet you in five minutes," or like "ppppppxxxx," like pocket tweeting, I guess. How he did this, I don't know. One was just his phone number. My brother and I told him he had to delete it, but once he wrapped his head around tweeting they started getting really weird. One he did was almost like a dark haiku, "On Amtrak train. Someone has jumped on the tracks. We wait." I was like, "Dad! Stop dark tweeting."

What's the difference between living in New York and L.A.?

New York is hard living. It's fun living, but it's hard. All I remember about New York is dragging a Bed Bath & Beyond clothes hamper down into the subway. I was always living in a fifth floor walk-up, it was always a lot of dragging and carrying. But I miss New York so much. L.A., you can try to dress it up, but you are essentially living above a strip mall. Once you get comfortable with that, it becomes easier.

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And L.A.?

I am embarrassed by how L.A. I've gotten. You go out there ready to hate everything and before you know it you're like, "I love Moksha yoga and this is my trainer Wess." I did a SoulCycle class, though, and I felt like I was going to blow my head off. I understand why people love it, but I just felt so claustrophobic. I couldn't get my feet out—they lock you in! I didn't know how I was going to find my way out of it—emotionally, spiritually, financially, sexually—I don't know if I was ever going to leave! And the woman leading the class was screaming, screaming, at the top of her lungs, "Who are you and why are you here?" It was much more of an existential question than I was prepared for in the darkness of that room.

Ass Backwards will open in theaters this November. Watch the trailer, which premiered today, here:

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